As the scholar Greenman made it clear in his book (at p. 132) - "Academic articles are of course protected by copyright, but the ideas and theses presented in the article are not protected. However, copying an original idea from an academic article without attributing it to the author who first presented it may violate the rules of academic ethics, even though it does not infringe copyright."
Second, the reference in the table is to pages 3-4 of the defendants' article, which deals with general background and a review of the literature (with reference to relevant sources) and not to the chapter that discusses the findings and conclusions of the article. From here, too, it is clear that we are not dealing with a copying of a way of expressing an idea.
More than necessary, I will note that as it emerges from the defendants' article and from article 9 of the plaintiff, the international standards are currently based on the procedural approach, and this is not an "idea" or any development of the plaintiff. The essays, as will be presented in the next point of similarity, deal with a critique of this approach and a proposal to expand it.
- The second component in the table of the Vaknin opinion presented in the summaries deals with "the development and expansion of the classical approach to ISO 9001 and ISO 9004 standards". Here, too, the plaintiffs did not bother to elaborate in the summaries on the significance of the words. However, a review of the articles and quotes presented in the table shows that the reference is to the claim that the classical procedural approach in the ISO standards in question is insufficient when it comes to global organizations, and that it should be expanded and adapted to their unique characteristics.
First and foremost, as can be seen, here too we are dealing only with an idea and not with the way it is expressed. The component does not include any detail of the proposed development and expansion, but only that development and expansion must be carried out. This is clearly a general idea, and not an expression of an idea that can be recognized in relation to copyright. Can it be seriously said that after a certain researcher claims that a certain approach is inappropriate, no other researcher will be able to use that idea and try to develop more appropriate tools?